Jacob

American  

[jey-kuhb, zha-kawb] / ˈdʒeɪ kəb, ʒaˈkɔb /

noun

1. (in the Bible) the second son of Isaac, the twin brother of Esau, and father of the 12 patriarchs.

2. François 1920–2013, French geneticist: Nobel Prize in Medicine 1965.

3. a male given name: from a Hebrew word meaning “supplanter.”

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Jacob British  

/ ˈdʒeɪkəb /

noun

1. Old Testament the son of Isaac, twin brother of Esau, and father of the twelve patriarchs of Israel

2. Also called: Jacob sheep.  any of an ancient breed of sheep having a fleece with dark brown patches and two or four horns

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Jacob Scientific  

/ zhä-kôb′ /

1. French geneticist who studied how genes control cellular activity by directing the synthesis of proteins. With Jacques Monod, he theorized that there are genes that regulate the activity of other, neighboring genes. They also proposed the existence of messenger RNA.

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Etymology

Origin of Jacob

sense 2 in allusion to Genesis 30:40

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Jacob

The latest installment of the Marvel’s arachnid superhero saga sees Tom Holland return as the central character alongside Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Mark Ruffalo, Jacob Batalon and Jon Bernthal.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026

Carly Calland's 14-year-old son Jacob died in March 2025 of a catastrophic head injury.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

Jacob Daniel Terrazas, 31, previously pleaded guilty in January to a misdemeanor count of simple assault on a federal officer.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026

The idea that gravity and thermodynamics are deeply linked dates back to the pioneering work of Jacob Bekenstein and Stephen Hawking in the 1970s.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026

Monod and Jacob, working with Arthur Pardee, a microbial geneticist from America, discovered three cardinal principles that governed the regulation of genes.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee